Monday, March 30, 2015

Lilly Pulitzer and Target have collaborated to bring us another gorgeous collection of items to brighten up your style and your home. Here are my picks for the top looks and items you have to get your hands on!

Ladies, these items are sure to to sell out fast. So on April 19th, you'd better have your car keys ready to drive to your local Target store! You can purchase the collection online as well, but be prepared for a slow website and products that sell out faster than you can click your mouse!

And they even have some cute outfits for your Mini- Me!

Check out these stylish items for your home!

You can see the full Lilly Pulitzer for Target collection online at Target.com. Will you be shopping this collection?

Spring is here and my love for flowers is blooming! I have been looking for some chic ways to incorporate florals inside by home. These inspiration pics are so gorgeous! I LOVE a well decorated, beautiful home!

Saturday, March 28, 2015

Easter is just around the corner, so I thought I’d play around with
some nail designs. These looks are great if you’re short on time and patience.

The
easiest one of all is the pastel rainbow. I love this one! I went over my
rainbow with glitter, but they’ll look neat with any finish – pearlized, metallic,
matte, shiny, or satin.

I also
really love this variation of the look below – the pastel rainbow French
manicure, found on Pinterest, from the VP Fashion blog.

Dots are
also quick and easy to add if you use the end of a bobby pin dipped in nail polish. This
is great if you don’t have many pastel colors, because you only need two.

Bunny nail
art is super cute! You can speed up the process by putting these little guys
only on your ring fingers. I used a textured mint green background to represent
grass, but any color will work. If using the brush from a white nail polish is
too difficult, then there are nail art pens you can get and simply draw the
bunnies on that way. The one I have is the Nailene White French Tip Pen. I
started out using my bottled polish, and it wasn’t too tough. However, the
particular shade of white that I have is not opaque enough, and I ended up with
a little ghost bunny. The nail art pen is a brighter white, and much easier to
use. Next year, I’m definitely sticking to the pen!

To make eyes, a mouth, and
a nose, I used little bits of glitter. This way, the shapes are perfect. All
you need is an orange wood stick and glittery polish! The orange wood stick can
be substituted with a toothpick, but since orange wood sticks are longer, they
are easier to use. When I use a toothpick, I sometimes poke myself in the palm.
I also used the orange wood stick to pick up a little bit of pink for inside
the bunny’s ears, but that step is not essential.

And that’s
it! I hope you all share your own cute Easter nails. Have fun!

Monday, March 23, 2015

This post is going to be all about this app that I discovered and the shows that I've been watching since discovering it!

It's
called Amazon Prime Instant Video.

Amazon Prime Instant Video is available for download in the App Store. It is also free with any Amazon Prime Membership (hint: if you are a student, you can get a FREE Amazon prime
membership!!)

There
are A TON of free shows and movies that you can watch through the app. You just need to be connected to WiFi to watch. I down loaded the app to
watch a show my husband told me about: The Americans (FX). This show is
freaking awesome! Easily my new favorite show. It takes place in DC in
the 1980's, the two main characters are Russian spies who pretend to be
American Citizens. They juggle their lives as a family with a small
family business, and their duties to the motherland (Russia/Soviet
Union). The first two seasons are available for free, and the third
(current) season is also available for purchase on the app!

This
was my first experience with binge- watching a show... I was hooked and
went on to binge watch all five seasons of Downton Abbey.
****LOVE**** For those of you who don't already know, it's a British
period drama set in a fictional Yorkshire Country Estate, and depicts
the lives of an aristocratic family, and their staff. The first four
seasons are free and the fifth season is available for purchase for $14.99.

Want another awesome show to binge-watch? I just finished up the 4-season series from Showtime, The Tudors, which is all about the
reign of King Henry VIII and his six wives. This is a Showtime
series, so there is lots of nudity! Just a fair warning!

I'm in love with this app and all of the shows they have available! I'm still deciding on next show to binge-watch.....

Monday, March 16, 2015

I've always wanted to create a Bucket List. A Bucket List is a list of things you want to do or experience before you, well, "Kick the Bucket ." It almost seems silly to think so far in the future, but creating a list of what you want to achieve in your life is a fantastic step in making sure it happens.
So I created a FREE template for you to print out and use to create your very own list.

Everyone's list is always going to be different than everyone else's because we are all unique. You can put anything on your list.
Maybe you want to start a family, or maybe you want to travel to every continent. Maybe you want to learn to play and instrument or get a tattoo.

It's all about the things you want to do in your life and the kind of person you want to be.

So what are you in pursuit of?

I wrote "Happiness, Creativity and Love" on mine. My list covers everything from seeing my favorite band to volunteering to going camping to learning a new language. I used up every single line, but you don't have to. ( I also put a couple on mine that I can check off already, like getting married and starting a family, because I like to feel like I'm accomplishing something. --Insert laughing Cat Emoji here-- )

Sunday, March 15, 2015

Hi,
everyone, Grace here! Today I’m going to show you one of my recent quilting projects. I’ve
been quilting for a few years now, but I have never crazy quilted! This project
is my first attempt, and I love how these blocks turned out!

For those of you
who are new to quilting, crazy quilts typically incorporate, buttons,
embroidery, and other types of embellishment besides fabric to create an energetic
collage. The term “block” refers to the individual squares that make up a
quilt. Think of a quilt like a grid – each square in the grid is referred to as
a block. I like to use a combination of
machine and hand-sewing, but I’ve included a link to some instructions that
show you how to put it together with only the machine. Plus, if you use only
the decorative stitches on your sewing machine and skip the hand embroidery,
these crazy quilt blocks can come together pretty fast!

Rather
than create an entire quilt, I focused on single blocks. I chose different
color schemes for each. My favorite is definitely the white and cream block! My
inspiration came from Colette Wolff’s book The
Art of Manipulating Fabric. She makes beautiful fiber art out of plain
white fabric, creating various textures by stitching the fabric into
three-dimensional forms. First I laid down my fabric scraps onto my backing
fabric, which is muslin (plain-woven cotton). I sewed all of the scraps on,
turning under the cut edges or covering them with trim. This is to prevent
fraying. Once my base was down, I went over it with embroidery (by hand and
machine), buttons, lace and trim. It’s a great project to use up scraps, so
that they don’t go to waste.

I
incorporated the most hand-embroidery into the red, blue, and purple block. I
learned these stitches from The Complete
Book of Needlecraft. By Janet Kirkwood et al. There are tons of embroidery
tutorials on Pinterest and YouTube, as well. I like the two illustrations at
the bottom of this crafty tumblr post.

I’ve
embroidered before, so I only needed a refresher. If you have never embroidered
before, or find it difficult to learn from static images, then YouTube is going
to be way easier.

I don’t
often use the embroidery settings on my sewing machine, so this was the perfect
opportunity to try them out! On the earth tones block, I used machine
embroidery only, but put together the base with the same machine and hand
sewing combo as the previous two. I am happy with how it turned out, but on
future quilting projects, I think I am going to stick with hand sewing. Even
though it is incredibly time-consuming, I think the results are prettier, and
they are not difficult to do.

Lastly
I’d like to show you my first machine-only block. I wanted to experiment with
what a crazy quilt block would look like with machine sewing only. It’s fun and
fast, so if you’re an impatient quilter, then this is the way to go! In the
future, I’d like to put my blocks into frames, as well as make more circular
ones for the wooden circular embroidery hoops.

Thanks
for checking out my work! I hope you’ve been inspired to start up a quilting
project of your own. Once you complete your first block, I think you’ll be
hooked. To learn more about quilting, I highly recommend the Missouri StarQuilt Company’s YouTube channel.

Monday, March 9, 2015

The world around us is beautiful! We aren't always able to see it or appreciate it with all the hustling around we do in our day-to-day lives. But there are some people who are gifted with an ability to see the beautiful in the ordinary, in the everyday. They are able to capture it and share it with others and for a moment, we can pause and take in what we may have missed.

Today I wanted to share some work from my long time friend Taylor M. Meredith!

She is so incredibly talented (and a total natural beauty, right?!)

Taylor has been taking photographs on and off since she was about 10 years old. For the last 3 years, she has spent quite a bit of time shooting frequently and posting onto her photography blog. She takes pictures for the Oxford Visitors Bureau and also writes for Photojojo, a photography based blog.

She currently just started this project that I absolutely fell in love with. It is all about breaking down the notion that beauty and intellectualism have to be mutually exclusive. With her portraits she asks the question, “Who says teachers can’t be fashion models?”

Exactly! Who said!

We've all seen the stereotypes: The male model who is as dumb as a rock, the pretty blonde girl...well, we've all heard those blonde jokes...

I mean, seriously?

And even then, there is no denying that there is beauty in intelligence.

Here are some pictures of her first subject, Josh, who is a teacher at Miami University in Oxford.

FANTASTIC, right?!

I wanted to ask Taylor a couple questions about what it is about photography that she loved so much. This is what she told me:

"When
I shoot posed portraits (like in this latest project) what I enjoy most
is working with people and capturing what is unique and beautiful about
them. In general though, what I love most about photography is that it
allows me to share my perspective of the world exactly as I see it.
There's a challenge in capturing and then retelling a moment through a
photograph, and while it's not always easy it's extremely rewarding when
I get it right!"

I was also able to ask her if she ever had fears or doubts about being a photographer.

"I
do sometimes worry about the likelihood of making it as a professional
because there are so many photographers out there and a great deal of us
are trying to accomplish the same thing. But I would never give up on
taking pictures, even if that meant just shooting as a hobby.
Photography is such a huge part of who I am, I honestly can't imagine
going very long without picking up my camera."

I love to hear about people living out their dreams and pursuing whatever it is that fills them with purpose and passion. This is what we are meant to do with our lives. We are meant to find enjoyment and beauty within our lives. It is absolutely the essence of this blog.

You can see more of Taylor's work and more of her project by going to www.TaylorMMeredith.com. Here are some more beautiful photographs taken by Taylor.